Lightly active and exercise cals?

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barran123
barran123 Posts: 9 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Ive set my profile as 'lightly active' - i work two 12.5 hour shifts a week where im on my feet almost the entire shift plus an hours walk or 30 min cycle to and from work. My days off are spent chasing around after my toddler. I have going for walks almost daily to try and up my calorie burn - my question is, can i consider the calories burned as exercise cals, or would it just count towards my 'lightly active' lifestyle?

I have been on here for a while and never ate back any exercise cals (in an attempt to cheat the system which has backfired as i end up hungry and overeating anyway).

What should i do with my walk cals? And also is my lifestly even considered 'lightly active'?

Replies

  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
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    I would log just the "added" daily walks and see how that goes after a couple weeks. Most people here eat back 50-75%. If your weight loss stalls, dial it back. If you feel run down, eat more.

    You might look into an activity tracker (FitBit)...or phone app to help you figure this out. Most young mothers are not sedentary. Lightly active doesn't provide a large bump.

    http://www.fitnessforweightloss.com/rate-your-activity-level-based-on-steps-per-day/
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,720 Member
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    You are NOT just "lightly" active. 2 to 2.5 hours of walking for exercise a day--with no other activity beyond sitting on one's *kitten*--is enough to top out MFP's most active setting.

    Based on your type of exercise I would look into an activity tracker (Fitbit, jawbone, Pacer or similar on Android and iPhone).

    Most steady state cardio exercises are well understood and measured, HRMs are relevant to them, and (assuming your logging is accurate on both sides of CICO) you should be able to eat back 80-100% of the calories associated with them.

    Sedentary level refers to people who are not active for more than 35 minutes per day/ 3500 steps.

    A step proxy for various activity levels can be found here:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14715035

  • barran123
    barran123 Posts: 9 Member
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    Thank you both for your advice im going to get myself an activity tracker and see what is actually happening - probably explain why i was gettig burnt out so quickly!

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